第71章

We have thus discussed the cause of all these phenomena, (1)female and male offspring are produced, (2) why some are similar to their parents, female to female and male to male, and others the other way about, females being similar to the father and males to the mother, and in general why some are like their ancestors while others are like none of them, and all this as concerns both the body as a whole and each of the parts separately.Different accounts, however, have been given of these phenomena by some of the nature-philosophers; I mean why children are like or unlike their parents.They give two versions of the reason.Some say that the child is more like that parent of the two from whom comes more semen, this applying equally both to the body as a whole and to the separate parts, on the assumption that semen comes from each part of both parents; if an equal part comes from each, then, they say, the child is like neither.But if this is false, if semen does not come off from the whole body of the parents, it is clear that the reason assigned cannot be the cause of likeness and unlikeness.Moreover, they are hard put to it to explain how it is that a female child can be like the father and a male like the mother.For (1) those who assign the same cause of sex as Empedocles or Democritus say what is on other grounds impossible, and (2) those who say that it is determined by the greater or smaller amount of semen coming the male or female parent, and that this is why one child is male and another female, cannot show how the female is to resemble the father and the male the mother, for it is impossible that more should come from both at once.Again, for what reason is a child generally like its ancestors, even the more remote? None of the semen has come from them at any rate.

But those who account for the similarity in the manner which remains to be discussed, explain this point better, as well as the others.For there are some who say that the semen, though one, is as it were a common mixture (panspermia) of many elements; just as, if one should mix many juices in one liquid and then take some from it, it would be possible to take, not an equal quantity always from each juice, but sometimes more of one and sometimes more of another, sometimes some of one and none at all of another, so they say it is with the generative fluid, which is a mixture of many elements, for the offspring resembles that parent from which it has derived most.Though this theory is obscure and in many ways fictitious, it aims at what is better expressed by saying that what is called 'panspermia' exists potentially, not actually; it cannot exist actually, but it can do so potentially.Also, if we assign only one sort of cause, it is not easy to explain all the phenomena, (1) the distinction of sex, (2) why the female is often like the father and the male like the mother, and again (3) the resemblance to remoter ancestors, and further (4)the reason why the offspring is sometimes unlike any of these but still a human being, but sometimes, (5) proceeding further on these lines, appears finally to be not even a human being but only some kind of animal, what is called a monstrosity.

For, following what has been said, it remains to give the reason for such monsters.If the movements imparted by the semen are resolved and the material contributed by the mother is not controlled by them, at last there remains the most general substratum, that is to say the animal.Then people say that the child has the head of a ram or a bull, and so on with other animals, as that a calf has the head of a child or a sheep that of an ox.All these monsters result from the causes stated above, but they are none of the things they are said to be; there is only some similarity, such as may arise even where there is no defect of growth.Hence often jesters compare some one who is not beautiful to a 'goat breathing fire', or again to a 'ram butting', and a certain physiognomist reduced all faces to those of two or three animals, and his arguments often prevailed on people.

That, however, it is impossible for such a monstrosity to come into existence- I mean one animal in another- is shown by the great difference in the period of gestation between man, sheep, dog, and ox, it being impossible for each to be developed except in its proper time.

This is the description of some of the monsters talked about; others are such because certain parts of their form are multiplied so that they are born with many feet or many heads.

The account of the cause of monstrosities is very close and similar in a way to that of the cause of animals being born defective in any part, for monstrosity is also a kind of deficiency.